Web founder says Facebook is a trap
Published On: Wed, Nov 24th, 2010 | Social Media | By BioNewsTim Berners-Lee, credited with creating the Web, has warned that social networking sites like Facebook and Linkedln represent one of the several threats to the future of the world wide web.
In an essay published in Scientific American, Berners-Lee said that the Web is affected by elements that have ‘begun to chip away at its founding principles’.
Social networking sites that do not allow users to extract the information they put into them is a ‘problem’ that could mean the web is ‘broken into fragmented islands’, he said.
Although Facebook recently began allowing users to download profile information, including status updates and photos, it has been roundly criticised for leaving users” networks of contacts ‘walled’ inside its own site.
Berners-Lee warned that such a ‘closed silo of content’ risked leaving the web fragmented.
“The web evolved into a powerful, ubiquitous tool because it was built on egalitarian principles,” he said.
“The web as we know it, however, is being threatened in different ways. The more you enter, the more you become locked in. Your social networking site becomes a central platform – a closed silo of content, and one that does not give you full control over your information in it,” he added.
Berners-Lee said there was a worry Facebook could become ‘so big that it becomes a monopoly, which tends to limit innovation’(ANI).
Reference: Tim Berners-Lee, Long Live the Web: A Call for Continued Open Standards and Neutrality, Scientific American, November 22, 2010
Facebook sucks
Not a problem. When Facebook jumps the shark, another revolutionary, free, open idea will come around that will render it obsolete. I, for one, am not worried. It's Zuck who should be worried that he exits before this inevitable turn of events happens.
I could've told you that
In that case, what would be an appropriate solution? Use Orkut? Wait for Diaspora?
I agree with the man entirely – Facebook has set an incredibly dangerous precedent. A precedent that will ultimately snowball into an utter disaster for privacy.
Diaspora – look it up… That is all.
Why should Zuck be worried? He's already made it.
Right, I fairly agree with you. But yet by the time Face Book does away with its apps, new apps would be either in the market or on their way.
I thought I'd made it too.
Dispora's had already started private beta testing. The question is, will people drop Facebook and start using Dispora (even the geeks who have non-tech savvy friends will have to think twice before shutting their FB accounts)
Given the title of this post, it's a good thing Admiral Ackbar is chiming in.
completely agree with jlampa!
it's called Google search etc. aka go to different website. idiots
I agree with jlampa. Facebook, Linkedin and previously Myspace all remind me of the walled garden of AOL in the late 90s. A new fad will come and the current ones will die out.